Stephen Fry

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, and grew up in Norfolk. After a turbulent youth that included expulsion from school and a brief period of imprisonment for credit card fraud, he won a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1979. At Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, the university's famous comedy club, where he met Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson. He served as president of the Footlights and appeared in their 1981 Edinburgh Festival production The Cellar Tapes.

Fry and Laurie developed their comedy partnership through sketch shows and appeared together in Alfresco (1983 to 1984) on Granada Television. Fry achieved widespread recognition through his role as various characters in the BBC historical sitcom Blackadder (1986 to 1989), created by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.

In 1988, Fry appeared as a regular on the original BBC Radio 4 version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the improvisational comedy show created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson. When the show transferred to television on Channel 4, Fry decided that improvisation was not his strongest format and withdrew from regular participation, though he made two guest appearances on the television version.

Fry and Laurie starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1989 to 1995), a sketch comedy series on BBC. Fry starred as Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster (1990 to 1993) alongside Laurie as Wooster. He hosted the panel show QI from 2003 to 2016 across thirteen series. His film roles include Wilde (1997), Gosford Park (2001), and The Hobbit trilogy (2012 to 2014).

Fry narrated the UK editions of all seven Harry Potter audiobooks, which have become among the best-selling audiobooks in history. He has written several novels, an autobiography (Moab Is My Washpot, 1997), and books on technology and language. He was appointed a CBE in the 2022 New Year Honours. Fry's career since his Cambridge Footlights years and early BBC work has extended across television, film, and literature in a range of roles and registers that few British performers have attempted across comparable professional timelines. His role as General Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) and earlier Blackadder series became one of his most recognized performances, as did his title role as P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster (1990 to 1993) alongside Hugh Laurie, the creative partnership he had established at Cambridge.

His career in film has included roles in period dramas and genre productions including a role in the Harry Potter film series as the quiz host in The Goblet of Fire adaptation and as the narrator and Chaucer in A Knight's Tale (2001). He appeared in the Peter Jackson adaptation of The Hobbit, playing the Master of Lake-town in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013).

Fry has maintained a parallel literary career of similar range, publishing several novels, volumes of autobiography, and works of non-fiction. His autobiographies Moab Is My Washpot (1997) and The Fry Chronicles (2010) address his formative years and his Cambridge period respectively, while his novel The Liar (1991) and other fiction have extended his literary engagement alongside his broadcast work.

As presenter of the BBC panel show QI (Quite Interesting), which he hosted from its debut in 2003 through 2016, Fry occupied a defining British television role that drew on his evident intellectual range and his facility with comedy timing developed through years of performance.